Collaborate?

We licensed Bb Collaborate a number of years ago - it was done outside of our department with grant money. The end result of a 5 year contract in which $300k was spent...years 1 and 2, we didn't even know we had it. Years 3-5 we got some adoption but in the end, the product was really bad, just did not work well at all and was deemed a total loss.

I know the product had matured significantly and want to know from current users if you think it's a real value add for the cost?

Also, what are some of the more creative ways you are using Collaborate?

I agree with you that Collaborate classic (or the old collaborate) had many many issues which were caused by Java. However, the new collaborate ultra version is way, way better. It has now moved away from Java and is browser friendly.

Despite the issues with the original Collaborate, I was able to troubleshoot the user issues and successfully use it across campus. Is it worth it? In my personal opinion YES!

We use Collaborate in all of our online programs to hold virtual office hours, quick videos to clarify missing points on a weekly basis. I also use it to host, record and deliver virtual workshops. One of my most favorite features is the ability to send documents at specific times, and if a student is watching the recording, they will get those files at the same time as the students that attended. The only thing they cannot do is ask a real time question.

I'm not familiar with the former Collaborate tool, but I can tell you we use Collaborate for a weekly Blackboard Tool Tips Recording sessions we use with our instructors. We then link to a PDF document sent out to advertise and get instructor buy-in. We are still working on developing more, but right now it's very limited. I'd be happy to share those recordings with you as well as a few other ideas of how we use and train our faculty to utilize the tools. There are other ways the tool has been used for sessions such as Court, but I'm most familiar with this usage as I'm more directly involved.

Here is a session I conducted on February 7th as we are back down to once a month:

We switched our online courses from using Collaborate Original to Collaborate Ultra this year and feedback has been very positive on it so far. It's just so much easier for staff and students to get up and running with it. We use it a bit on blended courses here and there but not too much. Though it is much more viable for staff to use it on an occasional basis now as well - the old version required a lot of onboarding training for staff and students.

That's not to say Ultra is perfect and there can still be issues with connectivity (as with any 'live' tool) but it has none of the clunkiness of the old version. It's one of the most modern & streamlined tools available in Blackboard and the dev team have been great at adding new features.

As to other uses of it: one use I've tried is as a second screen in an active learning room. So for example, I might have participants working in groups at computers tasked with creating something (such as a blog, rubric, wiki etc.). I share my screen from a laptop & they have the Collaborate session open in a tab on their computers. On the main projector & desktop PC I have the current task that they're doing. On the laptop then I can have another PowerPoint session open. They can look at the main projector for their current task and switch to the Collaborate tab in their browser to see whatever links my laptop is currently showing (whether it be a PowerPoint file with additional resources & example websites etc.). It's early days on this but it's worked well so far.

Angelika Henry here, I am one of the members of the Collaborate training team. But I am also an Adjunct Professor - I would like to respond to your request, “…what are some of the more creative ways you are using Collaborate?”

Along with the standard, Office hours, Live Synchronous sessions, repeating and scheduled meetings, additional ways that I and many of my constituents utilize Collaborate Ultra is: Lecture Capture, Narration (Recorded) of posted documents within a course, coupled those recordings with Captivate and/or Camtasia – a recorded session can be modified to be an interactive learning opportunity for end users and learners. Within a learn course the “Scheduling Area” an instructor can create Rooms for individual groups to meet to complete tasks.

We are gradually getting more buy-in from instructors. I use it to provide training during professional development days to our faculty who may have chosen to *cough* stay home, or to those who are at one of our dedicated sites. We also use it to hold meetings at several locations at one time. Several online faculty use it to hold office hours; synchronous online classes are less successful, because of the difficulty of getting a group on online students all online at the same time.

However, we have had a huge uptick this semester in from the faculty who use Blackboard Learn to supplement their traditional classroom course - they are using Collaborate to hold class when we have a snow day. Last spring we missed several days, resulting in may classes having to meet extra days or extend class time in order to meet the course outcomes. We've missed five days so far this semester - including the first two days of the semester. The mutual meeting time isn't an issue for these classes, since they are held at the same time the classroom course would have met if the College was open. For those students who can't attend because they have childcare issues (their children's school's would also be closed), faculty record the class.